Little Guitars?

[j_fountain2]

How about "Little Guitars" like about the size of the Ibanez Gio's or that little Les Paul EVH played?
I have recently become an Uncle and I have been thinking of how I will corrupt my Nephew as he grows.
What better way than teaching him how to rock out. I don't want him learning on some POS though so I thought
it would be cool to be able to build him a good beginner size guitar using quality parts from Warmoth. No factory crap or made in Taiwan junk for my Nephew! :guitarplayer2:

 

[RLW]

The simple answer is...

build him a Mustang.

 

[j_fountain2]

I was thinking more along the line of a 21" scale neck and a 3/4 or 7/8 size body like a Jackson Dinky.

 

[guitlouie]

When my older son turned one year old,  We got him the PeeWee Les Paul.  Yes it's a POS, but he enjoyed laying it on the ground and hitting it with all manner of crap to get a sound out of it (it was plugged into the battery powered Epi amp that came with it, also A POS).  He did this until he was about four, then we got him a very cheap used Peavey Raptor, which was full sized.  Now my kids are both giants, but at four he could hold this full sized guitar almost like he was supposed to sitting down, but still, he liked to lay it down on the floor and abuse it.  He is now almost eight and can play some power chords, he can rock Wild Thing and Louie Louie and is starting to learn a Greenday song (lord help me).  All this time, his little brother gets whatever is able to be passed on to him.  My point in all this is that despite your good intentions,  Kids destroy things.  It is in their nature.  Get the lad some cheap stuff untill he earns the right to have the good stuff.  I just bought my boy his first Monster Cable and Boss DS-1, and gave him my old Crybaby when I updated Wahs, but trust me, he had to prove that he wanted it!!!!

 

[j_fountain2]

Your right, he will probably destroy his frist few guitars and amps, but if Warmoth makes the parts then after he smashes one I could teach him how to fix it. That way if he doesn't have what it takes to make it on stage he could at least be somebodys guitar tech when he's older.

He's only 8 weeks old now so I have a little time to plan it all out...

 

[stubhead]

The simple answer is...
build him a Mustang

I did EXACTLY this last summer. About five seconds after I tried one of those gruesome Squier Mini-Strats I thought, "I've GOT to have a nice little guitar...."
For some dumb idiot reason (probably several), when Fender reissued the Mustang they did so with every single one of it's major, crippling defects intact:

the horrible spiky little banjo frets;
the sadistic dogcrap tuners;
the kitten-in-woodchipper pickups;
the WORST WHAMMY EVER;
etc.

So, I built an alder-bodied "Mustant" with a hardtail string-thru bridge, Bill Lawrence L500R humbucker at the bridge and single at the neck with a concentric tone/volume control for each pickup, pau ferro fretboard with Dunlop 6100's, Grovers, the full monty. You can play it in bed! In the back seat of a car, in your rockin' chair etc. - well you can't but I can. It sounds fine, with 11's on it's like a 24.75" scale guitar with 10's or a guitar downtuned a 1/2 step - a great HB helps of course. I'd like a 22.5" scale one too though, even a 5-string solidbody mandolin-sized thing too.

 

[m4rk0]

that's a nice little wanker!  :icon_biggrin:

 

[Wyliee]

I wouldn't completely rule out the cheap little imports.  My son is 10 now and I got him a short scale strat a few years ago.  It's a Johnson.  Ugly headstock, but I checked out several at the local store and picked the best one.  Decent tone, very stable neck and fits him just fine.

-Eric.

 

[nathan a]

I learned to play on a department store acoustic. It was great because it taught me right away that it was okay to mess around with your guitars. After a few months and learning some chord progressions, I took off the strings and used sandpaper to file the nut and saddle down - so that the action would be playable.

Technically it worked, but it also fucked up the guitar in the long run. But it was a 30 dollar guitar. I have a special place in my heart for that thing.